Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chinese surnames

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[edit] Scope

[edit] inclusion of Korean and Vietnamese surnames?

Since some articles are already covering Korean and Vietnamese surnames that are using the same characters, I think the scope of this WikiProject can be expanded a little bit to include Korean and Vietnamese surnames. — Instantnood 11:56, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I would even suggest that articles on the same Chinese character surname, if they share a common origin, be limited to a single article. It only makes sense to be less redundant. The only problem will be over the romanization: are we to use the common Chinese romanization e.g. Li (surname) or the common Korean romanization e.g. Lee (Korean name) when they are both common surnames in their respective cultures?--Jiang 12:23, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

What about renaming the title as East Asian surnames, and state the scope as Chinese (including both Han and other sinicised ethnic groups), Korean and Vietnamese surnames? A few single-character Japanese surnames may be potential candidates too. — Instantnood 13:05, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to renaming, but WikiProject East Asian surnames could also be a parent wikiproject.Jiang 13:16, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

If Vietnamese and Korean surnames are covered, I don't think there's a lot about East Asian surnames not covered by this project, except ordinary Japanese surnames. — Instantnood 14:05, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] which surnames deserve articles?

Are we to include the top 100? top 200? as measured where: in mainland China? overall? any major locality (HK, Singapore, overseas, etc.)? What sources are there to draw on?

  • New History of Tang by Ouyang Xiu
  • Language Publication Society survey (Beijing, 1990)
  • The Hundred Families' Surnames《百家姓》
  • what else?

I also think some of the less common, but nevertheless famous or historical, surnames should deserve decent articles (e.g. Ouyang, Sima, Zhuge).--Jiang 13:16, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Agree. Wikipedia covers ancient people. What is (un)common today may not be (un)common in the past. — Instantnood 14:05, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't think there should be any limit on what surnames can be covered. As long as meaningful material can be found, even obscure surnames deserve articles. Yeu Ninje 20:20, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
I think the Surnames of Hundred Families (《百家姓》) also deserve an article...--Skyfiler 00:29, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming conventions

[edit] use of Chinese characters in titles

What about using Traditional Chinese characters/Hanjas/Hán tựs as titles for these articles, with romanisations, such as Pinyin, as redirects or disambiguations? — Instantnood 11:56, 18 November 2005 (UTC) (modified 13:05, 18 November 2005 (UTC))

discussion copied from Wikipedia:Peer review/Yuan (surname)

  • The other Yuan surnames are deemed "statiscally insignificant". But how "statiscally insignificant"? Where should the cutoff be where we have to considering giving any of these surnames articles? Does the information exist in published form to write lengthy articles on these other surnames? --Jiang 07:58, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
  • That's a fair enough objection. I went and did a search on google and found a few more surnames pronounced "yuan". Some of them are so obscure that I wouldn't think there'd be more than a few hundred people in the world who held them. According Yuan Yida's 中国姓氏, none of them make the top 100. This is basically what I meant by "statistically insignificant", but that is not to say that they don't have interesting histories. Of the 10 that's there, 2 were well known enough to be documented by Ouyang Xiu in Xin Tang shu (he recorded 103 surnames in total). Some of the more minor "Yuans" no doubt are verifiable through an obscure reference in an early dictionary or something. I'd say that only 元, and possibly 源 are worth mentioning in any detail (both have produced notable historical figures) because the others are just too remote. It seems a bit artificial though, to include them with 袁 since they don't have anything to do with each other other than a common pronunciation. But I guess we have to work with Western concepts here on English Wikipedia. This is what I propose: if there is one surname which is clearly much more populous (i.e. 20+ times more populous than another), then that one should take the lead, with the others as supplementary to the main topic (maybe included in notes or in a subtopic). This would apply to the Yuan (surname) article. Yeu Ninje 09:30, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I'd hate to see a page be cluttered up simply because the English written language lacks the complexity of Chinese characters. If they're a different surname, then I think they belong on a different page. They're not relevant, not even as a supplementary section. It would seem odd to have the lead section and most of the article discuss one surname and then have an extra section discussing another surname that is unrelated to the lead. There's no precedent for this, but how about using characters in the title for less common variations, e.g. Yuan (元), and adding a dablink at the top? I can't think of a better way to differentiate these in English. --Jiang 09:54, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree that it would be good to have a different surname on each page but the idea of using characters in titles seems very problematic. I don't think the English Wikipedia's ever had anything other than characters from a Latin alphabet in article titles. I tend to think that there are some irreconciable differences between the Chinese and English languages and accept that the solution will have to be a bit messy. But I personally can't support Chinese characters in titles. Even Chinese characters in titles of sections (for example in Li (surname)) look very repugnant to me. Yeu Ninje 11:25, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't think Instantnood's suggestion is feasible and can be accepted by the community. When people link to these articles, they are linking to the romanized versions. We seldom put Chinese characters directly in the article text. We put them in parenthesis.

However, I don't see a better alternative than to use characters as disambiguators. Trying to describe the character in English, use tone marks, or the like will be much messier. For our interests, we can classify characters into English characters and non-English characters. Wikipedia already uses non-Roman alphabet characters for personal names: Joakim Thåström instead of Joakim Thastrom, Großglockner instead of Grossglockner. There's been quite some controversy over the use of non-English characters, but this is over the article title itself and not the disambiguator. I see no other choice. The Chinese characters in titles of sections could be easily done away with if we split different surnames into different pages. --Jiang 12:35, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

When we have separate pages for different surnames with similar pronunciations, for instance, 張 and 章, or 李, 黎 and 利, we have to link to the specific articles anyways, no matter they are disambiguated with characters, tone marks or whatever ways. By using characters as titles we can also avoid the troubles and debates resulting from different pronunciations in different languages (e.g. 金: Kim vs. Jin) or multiple pronunciations in the same language (e.g. 費: Fei vs. Bi). — Instantnood 13:05, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
Actually, having non-Roman alphabet characters is inconsistent right now. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (standard letters with diacritics), a proposal involving diacritics. The de facto "standard" is if it's being used that way in English language publications or not (if it is not commonly used in English language publications, diacritics are used.), but even this is inconsistent. ColourBurst 17:12, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I really don't think the community will ever accept Chinese character article titles. Even my proposal is suspect. While I see the benefit of avoiding the conflicting romanization issue, using characters will be harder on some users than others. While any illiterate American or Englishman will intuitively know to pipelink away the Chinese character in the disambiguator, they will see [[張]] not know what to call it, how to pipelink it, or even what language it is supposed to be in. Parenthesis automatically suggest a disambiguator. A character without parenthesis will leave readers/users puzzled as to why the title is in Chinese and not in English. --Jiang 13:25, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

What about [[張 (surname)]] (alternatively [[張 (family name)]])? — Instantnood 14:05, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] discussion copied from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lǐ (李) (surname)

  • Comment: I encountered this problem with creating the Yuan (surname) article. Luckily the other surnames pronounced Yuan are very minor so they could be dealt with in a footnote. In the case of Li, this cannot be done, as the surname 黎 is statiscally important enough to warrant its own section at the very least. However, I don't think that creating separate articles using Chinese characters is a solution. As has already been stated, it is an unlikely search time, and the use of non-Latin scripts is discouraged on Wikipedia. Also, the title looks decidely clumsy. In the end, we have to accept that this is an English language encyclopedia. Its articles necessarily take the perspective of the English language, even when dealing with Chinese concepts. Inserting Chinese characters as a reference tool parallel to the English is one thing, but it is quite another to use Chinese characters as meaningful entities by themselves. This runs the risk of shifting this English encylopedia to a foreign language one. I think we can only try to explain and differentiate Chinese surnames within the article itself. Yeu Ninje 13:25, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Why can't we use tone marks here? -- ran (talk) 21:42, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
  • few keyboards are so equipped. But let's put that to one side for a moment. I completely understand where Yao Ziyuan, Sumple, ran and Deadkid dk are coming from. They are approaching the problem from a Chinese linguistic angle, whereas in fact we need an English linguistic solution. To occidentals, they are not radically different: it hardly matters whether a "Li" is "李", "黎", "理", "里", the starting point is still an 'L' and an 'i' on the keyboard. They are no doubt at that page to learn more about the distinctions, and perhaps the subtleties of the pronunciation, so it is convenient (indeed essential) to group them together. Furthermore, the average person searching English wikipedia is probably as incapable of recognising the different chinese characters, or correcly use the accents which make up the 4 pinyin tones, as I am incapable of deciphering arabic writing. So when trying to move this debate forward, I would suggest that the above editors considered how they would respond when faced with navigation pages based on, say, arabic script or sanskrit. Ohconfucius 02:42, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Alphabeta is not everything. There are something in the world that alphabeta cannot describe. So we have to use images sometimes. Things pronounced the same doesn't mean things are the same. This is an encyclopedia written in English language, not an encyclopedia change what things actually to be and localized them for English speakers. Yao Ziyuan 02:54, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • More info It is not my idea to use Chinese characters in titles for surname disambiguations, here is some earlier discussions: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Chinese_surnames#Naming_conventions Yao Ziyuan 03:01, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment I do agree that alphabeticisation can still fail ; a picture can often paint a thousand words, to coin a phrase. The debate which you linked to above still does not propose any solution which is workable to the average English user of wikipedia. In fact. it pretty much mirrors the one we are having here. But really, how would you respond when faced with navigation pages based on, say, arabic script or sanskrit, bearing in mind you're in English wikipedia? Ohconfucius 03:13, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment I'm trying best to make my solution workable to average English users. My solution: (1) Title style: Pinyin (Chinese character) (surname), pinyin is readable for English reader, Chinese character here for removal of ambiguities, (surname) tells average users what Pinyin here mean if he/she has no background knowledge of Chinese names. (2) A user do not have to know Chinese characters: The characters is in bracket only for disambiguation purpose, readers and editors can safely ignore it and reading or editing the article, use what Chinese text in bracket is page creator's business. I'm trying my best for WP:NPOV, since pinyin is PRC stuff, but the surnames might be used in several different East Asian countries. I can't find another romanization better for this situation (might be somewhat unfair to Korean speakers, but I'm trying my best).
  • Comment I'm still very uneasy about the use of Chinese characters in page titles, even if it can be piped. It is nearly impossible to type on a standard qwerty keyboard without CHinese language software or chinese OS, and some system OS versions do not support it because of conflicts of display and input. If we were to adopt standard Hanyu pinyin, it would make more sense to use a system of Li1, Li2, Li3, Li4 to represent the 4 tones in mandarin, as most mandarin scholars will know which one is which. It does the job better than pure reliance on the barenaked 'Li' and we should just accept that it does not do the job perfectly, but better than being naked.... Ohconfucius 03:47, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment I can't imagine what Li1, Li2, Li3, Li4 stuffs, personally speaking, this is the worst solution I've ever heard. I agree with you that make them naked. Yao Ziyuan 04:22, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: You don't use Li1, Li2, Li3, Li4 in China? In my Chinese classes, we learned these tone abbreviations as well as the pinyin diacritic markings. Anyway, there are at least about 4 or 5 different "Li" surnames for a particular tone, according to the Li (surname) article. Badagnani 04:39, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: At least in mainland China, we rare use it. This is not official written form of pinyin. The only use might be those lazy people type pinyin at an Internet instant messaging software, but this is only because of the limitation of current computer software. Yao Ziyuan 04:46, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: I am aware of the limitations of using merely the tones to represent chinese characters, but the only way of taking these into account on a standard qwerty keyboard would be to use a series of, say, 4 digit numbers to denote each character, and I'm sure that idea would go down like a lead balloon.....Ohconfucius 15:38, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: I've to say this is a bad idea. four-digit numbers give no additional information to either Chinese or non-Chinese. There is no technical problem to use Chinese characters at Wikipedia, I repeat. Yao Ziyuan 15:45, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: Even there may be no technical problem in using Chinese characters at English Wikipedia, there is still a people problem. BTW, I'd suggest dampened the tone of your conversation, and refrain from using types of phrases in discussions like "those lazy people type pinyin at an Internet instant messaging software", as I have witnessed serious fisticuffs from some of the more sensitive members of wikipedia community with less provocation. Anyhow, I'm sorry if I'm being stupid, but you could park some of the blame on Bill Gates. None of this is about laziness, but the limitations of the qwerty keyboard and computer software to talk Chinese by a non-chinese speaker. I often get by using copy&pasting chinese text, but I think most English-wiki editors would not see that as a way they'd like to work at wikipedia. Ohconfucius 15:53, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: Consider, people who can convert a character to its 4-digit code are not "lazy". And if he/she can do this conversion, he/she must also have software to convert it to original written form. It not only doesn't help lazy people, but also makes those people who can input Chinese character feels annoying. Yao Ziyuan 16:02, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment: I'm not at all advocating using a 4 digit code. I used it to illustrate how one could conceivably deal with the problem. The HK Government uses it, but you are right, no-one on wiki would buy it ;-) Ohconfucius 16:42, 25 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] non-Han surnames

Instantnood mentioned "including both Han and other sinicised ethnic groups" earlier. A good example of this, I suppose, would be "Aisin Goro". A surname like that can be classified as Chinese in the sense that it originates from what is now China. I have some problems with this, however. Chinese surnames come from quite a rigid and exclusive tradition. Most are descended from the earliest semi-mythical emperors. That's why we call ourselves 炎黄子孙, I suppose. Although a few surnames of non-Han origin have entered the list, most have been sinified or otherwise non-Han groups have taken Han surnames. This phenomenon is well documented for the medieval period. The imperial family of Tang, for example, were at least partially of Turkic origin. So the list of Han surnames, subject to surname extinction and surname simpification, has remained largely unchanged for the past two millenia. A surname like Aisin Goro doesn't share this classical tradition. It would not be appropriate to transliterate it in pinyin, and better to classify it as a Manchu surname rather than a Chinese one. "Chinese surnames", in this sense, could refer to "ethnic Chinese surnames" or "Han Chinese surnames". I suggest, however, that it actually refers to "surnames of Chinese origin". We should stick with "Chinese surnames" or possibly make it a bit less ambiguous (e.g. "surnames of Chinese origin"). That would be an appropriate test for the inclusion of surnames outside China (like the Korean Kim). Korean and Vietnamese, or even some Japanese surnames, can be incorporated if they have Chinese origins. Yeu Ninje 20:54, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

That's actually why I said "sinicised". Aisin Gioro is purely Manchu, but then some of the members of the Aisin Gioro clan have sinicised their name as 金, a literal translation of Aisin, and therefore 金 in this case is also a non-Han surname of sinicised non-Han people. Same for the royal family of Northern Wei.. we can cover 元, but perhaps not Tuoba/T'o-pa. — Instantnood 17:33, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] This gave me an idea...

Category:Wikipedians by surname

Thoughts? (Either by Chinese surname or just surname.)

-- Миборовский U|T|C|E 07:08, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
Support: Good Idea. - Yaohua2000 12:44, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Project Directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council is currently in the process of developing a master directory of the existing WikiProjects to replace and update the existing Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. These WikiProjects are of vital importance in helping wikipedia achieve its goal of becoming truly encyclopedic. Please review the following pages:

  • User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Culture Directory 2,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Philosophy and religion Directory,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Sports Directory,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory,
  • User:Badbilltucker/Geographical Directory/United States, (note: This page will be retitled to more accurately reflect its contents)
  • User:Badbilltucker/History and society directory, and
  • User:Badbilltucker/Science directory

and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope to have the existing directory replaced by the updated and corrected version of the directory above by November 1. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 22:47, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry if you tried to update it before, and the corrections were gone. I have now moved the new draft in the old directory pages, so the links should work better. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused you. B2T2 14:46, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article for deletion discussion notice

An article that you have been involved in editing, Lǐ (李) (surname), has been listed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Lǐ (李) (surname). Please look there to see why this is, if you are interested in whether it should be deleted. Thank you. --Kimchi.sg 15:14, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Result of the debate was no consensus.

And this one Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_November_22#Family_name_categories -- Yao Ziyuan 23:21, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Result of the debate was delete.

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:51, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Prominent people with the surname

One convention used across the surname articles is to include a list of individuals with that surname. As policy, I believe this needs to be clarified and enforced:

Requirements:

  1. It must be an interwiki link to an article which satisfies WP:NOT. No redlinks.
  2. Individual must have that surname. (Not as a given name.)
  3. The individual's article must show the full Chinese name to support inclusion in the list.

In addition, A-yao proposes that the Chinese name follow the English name, e.g.,

  • Ang Lee (李安), acclaimed Academy Awards winning film director

-- Robocoder (t|c) 19:04, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] To Do

  • Infobox, see Template:Koreanname

Bold text

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